Oldest Human Skulls Suggest Low-Brow Culture

A new analysis of two human skulls previously found in Africa shows they date
from nearly 200,000 years ago, making them the oldest known examples of our
species.

The finding suggests our ancestors spent a long, long time wallowing in an
uncultured era with no music, art or jewelry.

The fossils were found near Kibish, Ethiopia in 1967. Scientists had previously
thought they were no more than 160,000 old. The new analysis of rocks in which
the skulls were embedded shows them both to date back 195,000 years, give or
take 5,000.

"It pushes back the beginning of anatomically modern humans," said University
of Utah geologist Frank Brown.

The analysis is detailed in the Feb. 17 issue of the journal Nature.

Uncultured

Fossil records suggest musical instruments, drawings, needles and other sophisticated
tools -- with the exception of crude stone blades -- did not appear until about
50,000 years ago.

"Which would mean 150,000 years of Homo sapiens without cultural stuff,"
Brown said.

But evidence of culture is murky.

"There is a huge debate in the archeological literature regarding the first
appearance of modern aspects of behavior such as bone carving for religious
reasons, or tools (harpoons and things), ornamentation (bead jewelry and such),
drawn images, arrowheads," said anthropologist John Fleagle of New York state's
Stony Brook University, another member of the study team. But, he adds, "they
only appear as a coherent package about 50,000 years ago, and the first modern
humans that left Africa between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago seem to have had
the full set."

The new analysis seems to mesh with other studies that estimate the emergence
of humans around 200,000 years ago.

"It makes the dates in the fossil record almost exactly concordant with the
dates suggested by genetic studies for the origin of our species," Fleagle said.

Just cousins

The two ancient skulls are called Omo I and Omo II for the Omo River near which
they were found.

Interestingly, though the bones of the two heads appeared to be from the same
time period, Omo II is more primitive in appearance. This suggests that "when
modern humans first appeared there were other contemporary populations that
were less modern," the researchers report.

Led by Ian McDougall of the Australian National University, the researchers
examined the Omo River site from 1999 through 2003. They picked up more Omo
I bones, including an upper leg bone. They analyzed soil layers and used radioactive
gases, which decay at known rates, to put a date to the layers in which the
fossils were found.

The fossils must be at least 104,000 years old, the researchers say, and they
are confident in the new dating of 195,000 years.

Paul Renne, director of the Berkeley Geochronology Center, which specializes
in dating rocks, said the researchers made "a reasonably good argument''
to support their dating of the fossils. "It's more likely than not,'' Renne
said, calling the work "very exciting and important.''

Human ancestors go back as far as 6 million years, according to the overall
fossil record. The genus Homo arose at least 1.8 million years ago, scientists
believe, when australopithecines evolved into human ancestors known as
Homo habilis, which had larger brains but never grew larger than a 12-year-old
child of today.

Early Homo sapiens developed even larger brains, were taller, and had
straighter arms and legs.

The fossil record from 100,000 to 500,000 years ago is poor, Brown said, adding
to the significance of his group's work.

The Associated Press
contributed to this report

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Author Bio

Robert Roy Britt

Rob was a writer and editor at Space.com starting in 1999. He served as managing editor of Live Science at its launch in 2004. He is now Chief Content Officer overseeing media properties for the sites’ parent company, Purch. Prior to joining the company, Rob was an editor at The Star-Ledger in New Jersey, and in 1998 he was founder and editor of the science news website ExploreZone. He has a journalism degree from Humboldt State University in California.